All the King's Men
by Servant of Anubis
Summary: France scared the king's advisors, in his movements, his manners, his knowledge, but most jarringly, his experience. This was both beneficial and problematic. Oneshot


****I've begun to write France, gods help us. An exploration of a section of his childhood, set sometime between the fall of Rome and the Norman Conquest.  
_Trigger warnings:_ suggestions of child abuse, underage sex

**All the King's Men**

France scared the king's advisors. Not intentionally. He just unnerved them, in his manners and his habits. France supposed that the existence of an eight year old smarter than them threatened their tenuous sense of superiority, but it was more than that. A smart eight year old was one thing. An eight year old fluent in four languages (five if you counted Gaulish but nobody did), schooled in religion, philosophy, history, mathematics, astronomy, geography, military strategy, music, alchemy and still more, who acted well above his age, debating in court with an eloquence and charismatic force some of the other nobles could only dream of displaying, with eyes so steeped in experience it was as if meeting the gaze of an elder—_that _was unnerving, and the advisors quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, hated it.

Particularly because the boy had no qualms about playing his apparent youth to the fullest, when it suited him. He was a fantastic actor, a brilliant politician; what he couldn't achieve through open diplomacy, he skillfully acquired through other means. A well-placed purse could work wonders, but sometimes even that failed. When it did, things became trickier, but not impossible.

Because the single most frightening thing about the child was his _experience_.

Advisors not completely blind could note it in the boy's gaze, as he followed the moments of a lady across the room. Or a young man. It was not the blind, wistful longing of a virgin, but the knowledgeable gaze of a veteran. And that, frankly, was terrifying, revolting. A handful of men, upon noticing this in the child, stopped to ask in disbelief how the small nation had come into this knowing, but quickly abandoned the musing in favour of less horrifying thoughts. Questioning the origin did not change the reality, nor the fact that the boy was _completely_ aware of what could be accomplished with that experience.

It wasn't his first choice of action—although if it was the most likely to produce the desired results the fastest, he might consider it earlier than usual. There were very few individuals he considered out of bounds: the king, the queen, and their immediate children. Aside from that, the entire castle and those associated with it—the nobles, their families, their servants, the king's servants, the stable hands, the kitchen maids—could all be targets of manipulation. It was politics, that's how politics worked. Of course, money was usually more than enough for servants and the like; a single purse of his contained more money than they were likely to see their entire life. But the nobles, they occasionally could not be swayed by money, or preferred to accept other favours instead. Ones less noticeable, harder to trace. And so France would slip into their room at night, or meet them at the forest's edge, or by the stables, or in the gardens, and they would reach their agreement.

France always had the final say. The others didn't generally realize this—France was spectacularly skilled in manipulating people to reach the conclusion he wanted them to reach, without giving away that he was doing so. Having the final say was a safety precaution more than anything else; France knew that for all his experience and actual age, he was physically smaller than them and didn't want to be hurt. That choice was a luxury he didn't always have, back in Rome's time. Now he demanded it, setting the boundaries as he saw fit while still appearing to permit the other to have their say.

Sometimes, rarely, something would go wrong. A noble lord with a sense of entitlement would grow frustrated, impatient, and take whatever they wanted by force—France struggled, but there was little he could do against someone who was easily twice his size. Those were awful nights, when France was left aching down to his very soul. But the ache was always soothed, later. The last man to cause that ache was discovered to be plotting treason against the king, and no matter how loudly he shouted that he had been framed, the evidence was there. France smiled at him on his way to the gallows. A pity his family had to hang with him, but that was politics.

But those nights were rare enough, and the benefits of his activities otherwise fruitful enough, that France wasn't deterred. He was careful, and discreet, and besides, what lord would dare move against him afterwards? Because France was a fantastic actor, and what sort of wicked, sinful man would dare lay a hand on a child in that manner? So France got what he wanted and skirted the consequences. For a while, at least.

For the king's advisors were frightened of France. And fear fed the little gnawing worries in the back of their minds—what sort of child doesn't age? What sort of child has such an old soul—you can see it in his eyes. What sort of child knows of _those_ things, and willfully engages in them? What they didn't answer was: a nation-child over a thousand years old, raised in part by Rome, who taught him through action that the most powerful card he could play against adults, against people bigger than him, was sex. What they did answer, was _witch_.

It had only happened twice in the last three hundred years. Some days, after particularly bad nights, France would dream about it: needles pricking his skin, seeking a spot where he wouldn't bleed; that peculiar view of the sky when looking up through water, bubbles floating away from him as the rocks kept him firmly in place; a rope around his waist, the feel of the wooden stake against his back, and the flames at his feet. He would wake up, pale and shaking, and try to untangle dream from memory, like a shepherd pulling bits of straw out of his flock's wool.

He could always act a child, and possibly avoid that disastrous experience. But he knew it would drive him mad, playing that role for too long. For sanity's sake, France didn't bothering hiding himself. He continued to skillfully find the edge of what he could get away with, and walk it with a finite precision. Occasionally he would slip, but overall his balance was excellent.

-o-


End file.
